Day 15: Washington, DC to Charlotte, NC

Outline: Washington, DC to Charlotte, NC (via Blue Ridge Mountains)

Today promised to be a very long day, and so far, it's delivered. The first thing to do was to carry all my stuff over to the Metro (6 blocks away) and return to DCA to get my car. This is where the decision to bring along the rolling suitcase with a broken handle started looking like a bad idea. After getting the car, I drove up to Rockville (a DC suburb) to get brunch with my uncle and aunt and another set of second cousins:

From here, the plan was to head out west, drive down Skyline Dr in Shenandoah National Park to get a nice view of the mountains and such, and from there go straight down I-81 and I-77 to Charlotte. This changed when 2 things happened:

1. Massive traffic on 66-W leaving the DC area
2. Rain

Also, rain. And more rain. And occasionally fog. It became abundantly clear before I hit the park that there wasn't any reason to enter the park - visibility would be zero anyway - and the weather was slowing down the drive enough even on the interstates that time and safety would have been problematic on the smaller roads. Interstate 81 actually also heads down the Blue Ridge Mountains; it's less scenic than Shenandoah or the Blue Ridge Parkway (a parallel road that I wanted to take but vetoed for the same reasons as Skyline), but I can believe that it would be very pretty. It was pretty hard to appreciate any beauty with only about a car length's worth of visibility.

After a quick fuel stop in Salem, VA, it was more of the same down to Charlotte. Once I got out of the mountains things cleared up a bit - and you've never appreciated how sharply focused the world can be until you've spent 6 hours concentrating intently in the fog. Got a BBQ chicken plate and some chicken tenders at Shane's Rib Shack for dinner. They were good, but I was slightly disappointed - I was expecting a more saucy, E&J-style barbecue, whereas this was almost devoid of sauce. Maybe that's just the local style.

Tomorrow: Charlotte, NC to Atlanta, GA